Love and Compassion

Jesus told his followers to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Apparently many people who profess to be Christians want to be attacked and brutalized by other nations because for almost 2,000 years many Christians have waged wars and destroyed other peoples without feeling the least bit of compassion for the victims of their greed and arrogance. I don't think this is what Jesus meant by "love your neighbor as yourself".

In today's American churches many ministers preach hatred and intolerance, teaching their congregations to judge and act uncivily toward gay and lesbian people, non-Christians, and anyone who supports "liberal" laws supporting abortion and birth control. And yet there is not one word in the Protestant or Catholic Bibles that endorses this kind of hate-filled, intolerant behavior. Sure, people point to the Old Testament and say, "Well, the Jews were commanded by God to make war upon their neighbors".

And while it is true that the ancient Jews fought many wars, for the most part they were a tolerant (sometimes too tolerant) and friendly people who got along well with their neighbors. They were never criticized by the prophets for being friendly, gracious, and welcoming -- only for abandoning the teachings of Moses and the prophets.

The New Testament, however, warns the followers of Jesus against following hateful, deceptive, manipulative teachers who pervert the teachings of the Church Fathers and Jesus himself. Instead of paying heed to these warnings, unfortunately, many congregations go about their daily lives and only pay lip service to the Biblical principles that underlie what is supposed to be Christianity. Instead of practicing love toward their neighbors and tolerance for others these devout church-goers support racist, discriminatory behavior.

Some so-called Christians even promote racial hatred and intolerance by intentionally offending other groups of people. This is not the behavior that Jesus asked his followers to practice. It's a sad measure of man's failure to embrace the love of Jesus that critics of Christianity point to these short-comings and use them as an excuse to reject Jesus in their hearts.